Hacker News Reader

I opt-ed out from my Comcast ISP after reading this. Next while in my Verizon account I went to my privacy settings on multiple devices, and updated browsers and I had nothing but redirect notices about not being able to connect to the site. I called Verizon, to make my concerns known and was finally sent a link via text, to finally change my settings to Opt-out. Ridiculous. Thank you for your post.

lilbaineon Unrules – the other side of regulation – U Penn Law

Well done paper. The premise is enticing for further development and investigation. Also alludes to very similar specific philosophical ideas on regulation while balancing a concrete investigation focused on a social perspective. Thank you for the post.

I guess the question is now:

"how do you create rules for unrules?"

lilbaineon Ask HN: Have You Donated to Wikipedia?

Yes

lilbaineon The Stock Market Has Never Been More Overvalued

I thought about this since March and my stock investments some what proved me correct. Any company that provides a strong “good” or service during this period with both a strong balance sheet and low debt will make it through and is a good investment.

Also real or physical assets such as real estate in proper areas are good investments, real estate in specific regions are going through the roof! This is also due to low interest rates from the fed as well as low supply of property and high demand in specific areas of the country.

The real question is how are commercial real estate investments and banks going to be able to absorb or handle these financial hits when small businesses can’t pay rents or when big corporations have their employees work from home and realize it’s more economical for them to work from home and no longer need office buildings?

I guess the Fed will just bail them out as well.

lilbaineon The Stock Market Has Never Been More Overvalued

Good argument and well stated! Also inflation hasn’t kicked in since real wages are also stagnant compared to their real values (not nominal values) since probably the early 1990’s. I have been waiting for commodity inflation since 2011 and this period has been more deflationary from my observations. Take the price of oil as an example. Since 2008 to now. The prices of gold and platinum have been relatively low until the pandemic. Also look at prices of wheat and other commodities. They deflated in 2007-2014 and struggled to pick up.

Commodity pricing is also affected by varying political, social and technological environments. And from my own personal observance of the economy we are in a more biflationary period. This would be evident by the stagnant pricing of oil and the high prices of certain real estate, property and stocks.

This is also evident with the knocking off of Exxon from the Dow Jones stock exchange.

lilbaineon NSA Owns Everything (2015)

Also in the 9/11 commission report the one hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui was under investigation by the FBI in Minnesota and their FISA warrant was denied. The dispute was supposedly also over a "lack of communication/cooperation" between the FBI and CIA in active investigations.

Coleen Rowley was the whistle-blower on this event, and testified to congress. Everything on the laptop had the evidence of the 9/11 attacks, but was blocked by the FISA court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleen_Rowley

Ironically great investigators with 2001 tech could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Appallingly then the FISA court approved the whole sale surveillance of any Verizon customer. The wholesale Verizon order was the 1st and one of the biggest important information leaks from the Snowden documents.

A court that was set up to protect the civil liberties of Americans during the abuses of the 1960's-1970's failed in the protection of the largest terrorist attack in US history, but was then used to circumvent the civil liberties and privacy rights of a massive numbers of American citizens.

Then the government used the pretext of 9/11 to create these technologies by for the NSA to surveil the large majority of its own citizens, when all that was needed was 1 FISA warrant approval.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Drake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...

It's appalling, with the loss of our rights and the digital world now being used to further deteriorate these rights when it can be used in such better and positive ways.

Also a 20+ year war, Trillions of dollars, and millions of deaths could have prevented from not blocking this warrant. While right now, with COVID, we could use Trillions of dollars to help keep US citizens safe and use it for small business support during these tough times.

lilbaineon Is insurance more expensive in Black neighborhoods?

Agreed

lilbaineon Is insurance more expensive in Black neighborhoods?

Why was this post flagged?

lilbaineon NYC sets up quarantine checkpoints as it toughens state travel restrictions

Saw that as well. I can't imagine the logistics and monitoring involved with that in NYC. I guess opting-in to a contact tracing app would do the trick or some type of digital system.

lilbaineon Alexa Echo Eyeglasses

Thank you for the link

lilbaineon Using a VPN may make you less secure

I have always felt this way about VPN's and they become the gate-keepers of your data. Then they are "hacked" and it becomes public information for sale.

lilbaineon Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections

Hopefully FB goes the same way AOL instant messenger did.

lilbaineon Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

Agreed! Alexis de Tocqueville had similar arguments about slavery and it's economic inefficiencies. Sadly part of his argument was not based on civil liberties and rights rather his argument was the expense of the "up keep", housing and feeding slaves, versus an individual worker who is free has to provide their own cost of living for which that burden is then lifted off the master/owner. The business owner simply pays the worker for his/her labor, and no more feeding and housing. It saves expenditure burden on the owner and transfers the cost to the worker, maximize profits.

Wonder what he would say to the mechanization of labor through technology and its benefits of ending the institution of slavery and providing owners cheaper or eliminating labor expenditure?

So just another view point on the issue of "inefficiency of slavery" argument.

lilbaineon Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections

The internet did and was sharing a wealth of knowledge and changed the world. Personally I saw a large change in both the online community and it's nature when FB, Google and other online conglomerates became more concerned about stock investors interests, Snowden revelations, and the 2016 election. Online communities changed as well as commerce. The internet can still be a beacon of learning and knowledge however, in my opinion initial motivations which brought it's golden age were not based on commerce. Now they are. The culture of the internet has changed. We lost the "initial internet culture", and since this change, it's nature has also changed along with it's initial purpose. We can bring it back only if we choose to do so.